The simultaneity of construction and decay

Deep inside Russian countryside there is a place with a strange object. It’s made solely of wood and is called

“The Half-Bridge of Hope”.
It looks like a wooden bridge from one side of hill to another which suddenly finishes on its half. It has no any logical meaning or practical purpose, just stands in one of numerous Russian villages as an art object, made of wood as everything other around it.

Defying gravity

A floating house in Ukraine

Khufu’s Pyramid is built entirely of limestone, and is considered an architectural masterpiece. It contains around 1,300,000 blocks ranging in weight from 2.5 tons to 15 tons and is built on a square base with sides measuring about 230m (755ft), covering 13 acres.(Kowloon Walled city plot measuring about 210 by 120 m) Its four sides face the four cardinal points precisely and it has an angle of 52 degrees.

The shape of Egyptian pyramids is thought to represent the primordial mound from which the Egyptians believed the earth was created. The shape of a pyramids is thought to be representative of the descending rays of the sun, and most pyramids were faced with polished, highly reflective white limestone, in order to give them a brilliant appearance when viewed from a distance.

How curious that Egyptian chose stacked blocks of limestone as representation of ephemeral light.

Derinkuyu Underground City is an ancient multi-level underground city in the Derinkuyu district in Nevşehir Province, Turkey. With its eleven floors extending to a depth of approximately 85 m, it was large enough to shelter thousands of people together with their livestock and food stores. It is the largest excavated underground city in Turkey and is part of a network of several underground complexes found across Cappadocia.

The first inhabitants of Cappadocia area have opened deep cavities within the volcanic rocks due to escape from the attacks of the wild animals and hard winter conditions and then they have enlarged these cavities according to their daily needs, they opened new cavities and created the underground cities connecting these cavities with tunnel and labyrinths.In all of the underground cities there are ventilation chimneys reaching place by place to a depth of 80 and until the underground waters. These chimneys were opened due to meet the need of both the ventilation and water. Within the cities that are tepid in winters and cool in summers there are kitchens, cribs, wine houses, depots for cereals, meeting saloons, toilets shortly every kind of living space necessary for living. Within all the cities there are locking stones which can be opened and closed only from inside against to the threats which may come from outside.The oldest written source about underground cities is the Anabasis named book of Xenophon (Written around B.C. 4). In the book is mentioned that the people living in Anatolia have caved their houses underground and that the houses are connected to each other with holes: "The houses were built underground; the entrances were like wells but they broadened out lower down. There were tunnels dug in the ground for the animals wkile the men went down by ladder. Inside the houses there were goats, sheep, cows and poultry with their young..."

Rogner Bad Blumau hotel designed by

Friedensreich Hundertwasser

Green roofs, round shapes and facades, colours which evoke memories of rainbows create a spirited work of art in the middle of fields and meadows. Rogner Bad Blumau is arranged like a city with various districts. The ring-shaped inside spa is the centre, the diverse accommodation, swimming, bathing and restaurant areas branch from the centre out into the open landscape.

Ever since it started, Rogner Bad Blumau has followed the philosophy of Friedensreich Hundertwasser: "A life in harmony with nature." This of course has to include green energy from our very own geothermal system. Even at outdoor temperatures of minus 20 degrees, the system ensures that the whole complex stays pleasantly warm and at the same time cuts down atmospheric emissions by 4 million kilograms of C02 every year.

Auroville

The city was founded upon these principles, called "The Auroville Charter:"

1. Auroville belongs to nobody in particular. Auroville belongs to humanity as a whole. But to live in Auroville, one must be the willing servitor of the Divine Consciousness.

2. Auroville will be the place of an unending education, of constant progress, and a youth that never ages.

3. Auroville wants to be the bridge between the past and the future. Taking advantage of all discoveries from without and from within, Auroville will boldly spring towards future realizations.

Foreword by Shri Jagmohan' Auroville's emphasis on sustainable use of resources, the building of community through human creativity, and relevant urban design clearly place Auroville in the category of "cosmopolis." The matrimandir is a modern day ziggurat of the modern day "cosmopolis," and to top off the comparison, the galaxy urban design literally make Auroville a "cosmos"-polis.

Kowloon Walled City was a densely populated, largely ungoverned settlement in Kowloon Hong Kong. Originally a Chinese military fort, the Walled City became an enclave after the New Territories were leased to Britain in 1898. Its population increased dramatically following the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong during World War II. From the 1950s to the 1970s, it was controlled by Triads and had high rates of prostitution, gambling, and drug use. In 1987, the Walled City contained 33,000 residents within its 6.5-acre (0.03 km²; 0.01 sq mi) borders.

The Walled City of Kowloon has no visible wall around it, but it is as clearly defined as if there were one made of hard, high steel. It is instantly sensed by the congested open market that runs along the street in front of the row of dark run-down flats—shacks haphazardly perched on top of one another giving the impression that at any moment the entire blighted complex will collapse under its own weight, leaving nothing but rubble where elevated rubble had stood.

—Robert Ludlum, The Bourne Supremacy, p. 149[45]

I think it’s one of the most curious example of self organized society on such a tiny plot of land though a dark and gloomy one.